Stitching in the great outdoors

I had a wonderful day yesterday, with my good friend Belinda (who writes the Itch to Cross stitch blog). We have been trying to arrange a stitchy day together for ages, just the two of us as most times we get together it's with our daughters (who are almost 4 and just turned 2). We love the girls to pieces but just craved some adult catch up time. Belinda had the awesome idea of going for a picnic/stitchy day in the Dandenongs, and we eventually settled on a date that suited us both. Luckily for us too, the weather was perfect. It was forcast to be 33 degrees, but it's always cooler in the Dandenongs. After looking at a couple of picnic grounds that weren't suitable (either waaaay too busy or just a couple of tables in the middle of a woody area with no shade) we found a lovely little sopt called One Tree Hill picnic ground and set ourselves up. We brought salad and wraps, biscuits, fruit, my jelly slice and all we needed for a couple of lovely cups of tea. And, of course, our stitching stuff! We were in a lovely shaded area and it was wonderful and quiet. There were a few other picnic-ers around but they were far enough away that we felt like we were by ourselves (mind you, we got a few curious looks as people walked past!) The only other "company" we had was that of the bugs... Flies the size of which I've never seen before, some beautiful butterflies and, of course, some ants. One actually got so close that Belinda ended up accidentally getting one caught on her thread. We watched it struggling to get off for ages, but it couldn't. Turns out she's somehow managed to pierce it slightly so it had to have help to get free. Think it was probably a bir sore after the experience but it definitely made our day all the more memorable! In between all the great conversation and the picnicing, we actually did get some stitching done. And I have proof! Here's me....




And Belinda....




And here is the sum total of my stitching yesterday. I was working on the foot of rabbit, so didn't stitch much at all (far too much conversation going on!) but it was the first time I have picked up the Winnie The Pooh cross stitch in a very long time, so it felt good to be doing SOMETHING on it :)




And finally, a picture of how my choc mallow jelly slice turned out. I'm glad hubby made me do a trial run with it, as I'll need to make it in a different pan next time but think it turned out pretty well.



I'll be making something different for the next picnic day - it was so good yesterday that we've already planned the next one! Looking forward to much more stitching time next time!